Fisher has confirmed that they have acquired the assets of the Manta development program and hired Alexandre Tartar the French physicist who designed it.

They have confirmed that they are proceeding with the development of PI detectors based on this technology.

The Manta prototypes were waterproof PI’s which had excellent depth, easily saw through black sand and demonstrated a form of iron audio id as well as an option of discriminating out the iron.

This video made at a beach in northern France (not so far from Dunkirque). The audio is in French, bit it’s pretty obvious what they are demonstrating. As far as whether there is some kind of fakery involved - First Texas must have been pretty satisfied that the Manta could do what was shown in order for them to make the acquisition.

Yes, rumors have been around for awhile....little clues have been posted on several forums for awhile.
Dave Johnson applied for a patent on some new pulse design awhile ago, as lytle78 mentioned they just hired a French guy with some new ideas about a unit called the Aquamanta that has a very interesting vid out there, and a few people that have taken tours of the factory have hinted they had seen them working on some new technology and/or designs that are different and could be mind blowing but they are sworn to secrecy.

FTP is the kind of company that keeps things close to the vest up until they are close to releasing any new product.
Literally a few weeks or even days away from release and I doubt they have recently changed.
Till they are ready we won't know anything, no info coming from them, anyway, but we FTP guys still have hope something will happen soon.
Look at what they have done recently...
Lowered prices on Flagship Fisher and Teknetics models, rebranding and changing prices on a few other units down their lines, dropping others.
They are making room for something, maybe a few somethings...that much is obvious.
None of this is being done because they got bored....they have some sort of plan in the works but we just don't know what it is...yet.
Patience is the watchword, let's hope we will be rewarded sometime soon.

"What if doing the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?”
Currently using an F70 and a Mojave....and a Nox.

Dave has been Chief Design Engineer there for a while. Whatever Carl's title may be, what's important is, you don't amass the amount of knowledge and abilty in the R&D department First Texas has, with the intent of them doing crossword puzzles.
First Texas is clearly developing some, hopefully significant, new equipment technically speaking.

Plenty of reason to look in their direction with optimism, and a bit of anticipation, if you're into detecting, IMO.

QuoteGreg (E.Tn)
I certainly hope it is all true. And if Fisher builds another water machine, we all know it will be built like a tank.

Thanks again for the kind replies.

That is the problem !

But if its light then the cost !

The CZ water machine platform while durable, and somewhat heavy, is 1990's era build standards. It remains one of the best saltwater machines to this day.

FTP has been a leader for the last 10+ years in producing lightweight machines, all in the 2.5-3.5 lb range, with very good ergonomics. I would expect that to continue with their next generation multi-freq.saltwater detector.

As to price, it would have to be competatively priced to compete with the current new offerings from other manufacturers, unless of course it contains better performance/technology to justify a higher cost.

"...saw a fellow on Geotech talking about a new PI design he developed. 99% of the time people who say they got something, don't really got something, and it takes very little time or effort to find out they got nothing. All I have to do is say "show me," and they either show me or they start bluffing. If the bluffing starts, I'm done. This guy didn't bluff, he packed up his prototype and sent it to me to evaluate. It worked so well we not only bought the design, we hired the guy full-time."